


Charmed, I’m Sure

by miss_aphelion



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, M/M, Protective Natasha Romanov, Protective Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-09-12 15:59:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16875849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_aphelion/pseuds/miss_aphelion
Summary: Tony’s got a charmed life: he’s good-looking, he’s rich, he’s a genius. No school  has ever been a match for him, which is probably why he keeps getting expelled.He’s determined to lay low when he gets sent to his third school in a single year, but then he gets a glimpse of gorgeous nerd Bucky Barnes and his misfit group of terrifying friends.





	Charmed, I’m Sure

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt from lilianox7 on Tumblr: _I’ve got a prompt if you're still looking (and happen to like it): I've seen lots of nerd tony and punk bucky high school au's but what if it's the other way around? soft nerd Bucky and hot bad boy Tony who is sort of intimidating? and some pining on either side? (and bucky might still punch people on Steves behalf but he tries to not get caught lol) hope you're doing well, by the way! have a nice day!_
> 
> Okay, so I’ve never been able to stick to a prompt exactly in all my life, but I did my best! I don’t even know though. This just kinda wrote itself.

“This place sucks,” Tony decided. 

Rhodey sighed, not bothering to look at him. “You’ll be fine. This is a perfectly good school.” 

“Did my parents receive that report I sent them about the benefits of home-schooling?” Tony asked hopefully, but Rhodey just opened his car door and nodded towards the school. “You’re heartless. Cruel.” 

“I’m your bodyguard, not your babysitter,” Rhodey told him. “I’ll be patrolling outside the school. You’ve got your panic button. Try to run off again, and I’ll be in your classes with you.” Rhodey placed his hands on his shoulder, leaning down to meet his eyes. “I really don’t think either of us want that.” 

“Ugh,” Tony said, but nodded. “Fine. You take one unscheduled trip to the Alps, and suddenly you’re persona non-grata.” 

“Uh huh,” Rhodey said. “I think it was a little more complicated than that.” 

More complicated in that Tony had hacked into his private school’s computer system, invented a non-existent history teacher, reassigned some of their budget to said fictitious history teacher, and then got him set up to take him and a couple of his friends on a ‘school’ trip skiing over winter break. 

His father had not been amused—but he was pretty sure he hadn’t imagined his mother trying to hide her smile behind her hand. 

Long story short, no private school would take him. So here he was. At public school. 

“My life as I know it is over,” he groaned, ignoring Rhodey’s laughter as he headed inside. 

His first class was as dreadful as expected. He had to stand at the front of the class and introduce himself. It was so quaint, and pedestrian, and _awful_. It didn’t get much better, though eventually they were released for lunch. The options were, frankly, terrifying, but his car privileges had been taken away by his father along with all his other basic rights, and he doubted Rhodey would be willing to pick him something up. 

Instead he just leaned up against the bleachers, in sight of the lunch tables but not close enough to have to socialize, and pulled out a pack of cigarettes he’d snatched from one of his mother’s hiding places.

“Smoking is forbidden on school grounds.” 

Tony glanced up at the sly voice, but didn’t pause in lighting his cigarette. The kid looked like the poster boy for the goth movement, and was maybe a year or two younger. He had long hair he’d streaked with some kind of product that made it more oily than shiny, and he was wearing a leather jacket with silver chains at the shoulders that looked a size or two too big. 

“Loki,” the kid said, holding out a hand. 

“Wow,” Tony snorted, reaching out to shake it. “And I thought my parents hated me.” 

Rather than get offended, Loki offered him a wry grin. “You have no idea.”

Then he was somehow holding his cigarettes, though Tony hadn’t felt them get pulled form his pocket. Loki pulled one out, and tossed the box back, putting the cigarette in his mouth without lighting it. “Thanks.” 

Tony rolled his eyes, pocketing them again, vowing to keep a closer eye on his possessions when Loki was around. He was just about to say as much when something caught his attention. 

More specifically, a _someone_.

Tony’s eyes widened, and he pulled the cigarette away from his lips in a daze. It was, by far, the most beautiful person he’d ever seen. He was wearing a blue and white stripped sweater with jeans and sneakers, and thick framed black glasses that would have looked ridiculous on anyone else, but somehow just made him even more gorgeous. 

He was laughing as he walked between the tables, hardly noticing the people moving out of his way, and it seemed to light him up from the inside. 

Tony blinked, but the vision didn’t disappear. “I think I’m in love.” 

“I suggest you think again,” Loki advised him. He glanced over, twirling his cigarette. “He’s not to be touched, if you value your life.” 

Tony raised an eyebrow, glancing back to where the beautiful boy was kneeling to help someone that had dropped their books. “Yes,” he said. “So dangerous. I see what you mean.” 

“It’s not him you have to worry about it,” Loki shrugged. “Barnes is a nerd. He’s second in our class and has been known to remind teachers when they _forget_ to give us homework. People would make his life hell, except for two reasons.” Loki moved his cigarette to the edge of his mouth, and raised a finger. “One, he’s hot, and that almost always gets you an automatic get out of bullying free pass. Two, Steve Rogers will literally kill you if you touch him.” 

“Steve Rogers?” 

Loki nodded back towards the lunch tables. His future husband—Barnes, apparently—was sitting at one of them now, smiling up at—oh, holy shit. “That guy is still in high school?” 

“He had a growth spurt last summer,” Loki shrugged. “Seems like he grew four feet in three months. First day back? He sucker punched Brock Rumlow. Rumor has it, he broke his jaw with one hit, but no one knows for sure, because he transferred schools.” Loki paused, for dramatic effect, probably. Tony would not to be surprised to find out that he’s in the drama club. “To another state.” 

“I’m new here, remember?” Tony asked impatiently. “I don’t know Brock Rumlow.” 

“Oh,” Loki said. “Well, he took out Barnes and apparently wasn’t going to take no for an answer. Luckily, Barnes is the one that taught Steve to punch in the first place, so he was fine. But Rogers holds a grudge. Everyone’s too terrified to ask him out now, they figure Rogers is working up the nerve to do it himself.” 

“So he’s taken,” Tony sighed, because that complicated things. Usually, it would be a minor roadblock, but he’d been kicked out of two schools in a single year. He probably should at least try to behave himself. 

“No, Rogers is dating Peggy, head of the debate team,” Loki said. “I didn’t say people were very smart.” 

Tony reached up to pinch his nose. “You are the least helpful person I’ve ever met.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” Loki said, before pushing off from the wall. “What that means, is that if you hurt him, Rogers will kill you.” 

“What if I don’t want to hurt him?” Tony asked. 

Loki raked his eyes up and down him, and then snorted. “Yeah, sure,” he said. “This is going to end well, I’m sure.” 

Tony was smart enough not to rely on a single source, so he spent the rest of the day covertly getting information. ‘Barnes’ was James Buchanan Barnes, or ‘Bucky’, apparently. He was a nice guy, a bit too much of a rule-follower, but always willing to help others out. 

The consensus on Steve Rogers was this: he was a berserker, and everyone knew not to mess with him, or with anyone in his general vicinity, if they didn’t want to be lectured like they were kindergartners and then possibly put down embarrassingly quickly. Rogers ran an anti-bullying campaign with his girlfriend in his spare time, and was afraid of nothing, even back when he’d been so small a stiff wind might have taken him out. 

Apparently he really had grown nearly four feet over a single summer, but before that he’d been bullied constantly, defended only by one Bucky Barnes. So they were inseparable, it seemed. They would defend each other unto death. Platonic soulmates. Yada yada. 

But the important part there was _platonic_. 

Steve and Peggy were the ‘It’ couple, and the real thing. Rogers certainly didn’t strike him as closeted. Tony suspected if he was gay, or bisexual, he’d be open about it and able to handle himself against anyone that had anything to say about it. 

So Tony had a chance. He just had to not bully anyone in front of either of them, which he never did anyway. So maybe he had a problem with authority, but he never picked on anyone weaker than he was. He picked on the strong, and Rogers could hardly blame him for that, not when he did the same thing. 

Which meant all he had to do was introduce himself. 

…

It ended up being easier said than done. 

Bucky was always surrounded by someone. Rogers and Peggy, or the beautiful red head who had caught him staring and looked back at him like she was imagining how well he’d hold up under vivisection, and the clumsy blond with a cast that kept magically appearing in his way whenever Tony started to approach. 

He thought it was all coincidence until the red head appeared leaning beside his locker the next morning, grinning at him with a sweet smile that was somehow the most terrifying thing he’d ever seen. 

“Anthony Edward Stark,” she said. “Seventeen. Genius level intellect, and yet you keep refusing to move ahead a grade. Or two. Or three. You could have graduated college by this point if you wanted to, and yet here you are. This is what, your third school this year?” She tsked. “Hate for that to end up four.” 

Tony tried not to gape at her, but he supposed her intelligence gathering skills weren’t too impressive. Most of that could be found on page six of the National Enquirer, after all. People liked to gossip about the exploits of the Stark Industries heir. “And here I’ve just been calling you ‘the redhead,’” he told her. “I guess you’ve got me at a disadvantage.” 

“I guess I do,” she agreed, but volunteered nothing further. “What are you after, with Barnes?” 

“I want to have his babies,” Tony admitted shamelessly. “I mean, have you seen him?” 

Her smiled turned sharp enough to cut, and she leaned forward. “Stay away from him,” she said. 

Tony watched her go with disbelief. He was used to his classmates being entitled trust fund babies that had never had to do anything for themselves—public schools were unexpectedly terrifying. 

Loki leaned up against the wall beside him. “I see you’ve met Natasha.” 

“You warned me about Rogers, and you didn’t bother to warn me about _her_?” he asked incredulously.

“Oh,” Loki said, unconcerned. “I suppose that was a bit of an oversight. I was only using hyperbole when I said Rogers would kill you. Natasha? Well, she’d probably actually do it.” 

“Natasha,” he echoed. “What’s her story?” 

“Natasha Romanoff. She was adopted when she was thirteen,” Loki said. “No one knows what her life was like before that, though people have speculated widely. Some even believe she might have been part of a government program to train children as assassins.” 

Tony rolled his eyes. “Yeah? And what do you believe?” 

“I think she’s very good at ballet,” Loki said. 

“Come on,” Tony said. “You have an opinion about everything.” 

“When she first joined our class, she refused to speak to anyone,” Loki said. “Barnes and then Rogers were the first ones she’d speak to. They’re all very close, and she’s a little protective. If I had to describe her, I’d say she’s dangerous when threatened.” 

“You think she has a thing for one of them?” Tony asked worriedly.

“She’s dating Clint,” Loki said, with a shake of his head. “Barnes and Natasha are just friends.” 

“Who’s Clint?” Tony asked, before his eyes widened. “Wait, the human disaster?” 

“Yep, that one,” Loki agreed. “And I wouldn’t underestimate him, either. They call them all the Avengers, and they’ve well earned the name.” 

“You speaking from experience?” Tony asked. 

Loki smiled wryly. “Let’s just say if my brother hadn’t happened to be one of them, I probably would have been transferring to another school myself.” 

“You’ve got a brother?” 

“Yes, he’s the only blonde here that’s bigger than Rogers. He has the aura of a large, over friendly golden retriever? Surely you’ve seen him,” Loki shrugged.

“The guy that looks like the Norse God he’s named for?” Tony asked. “Yeah, I did notice him. I would not have picked him out of a line-up as your brother.” 

“I’m adopted,” Loki said dryly. “Thankfully.” He shrugged. “It does make it easier to get away with things.” 

Tony stared back at him warily. “Have I accidentally befriended the school’s budding super-villain?” 

Loki grinned at him. “Now why would you think that?” 

…

Tony was not the sort to be rendered speechless by a crush. 

Usually, people were fighting over him, and he just had to pick the one he wanted the most. He knew how that sounded, but it was always in good fun. He never choose anyone he thought might get hurt by something casual. 

But he didn’t want casual with Bucky. 

The more he learned about him, the more he wanted to know. He was kind, and good, and so smart. Tony was pretty sure he could manage to knock him out of the second spot—though from what he’d heard, Bruce Banner in first was going to be a challenge to topple—but that was mostly because Tony has been studying for fun since he could read, and he’d been reading since he was two. 

That didn’t mean that Bucky wasn’t _brilliant_. And he was into math and engineering. 

They were basically soulmates. 

“Yes, soulmates, obviously,” Loki agreed. “Which is why you’ve yet to actually speak to him.” 

“He’s never alone!” Tony defended himself. “And Romanoff is plotting my death.” 

“Hmm, she is rather suspicious of you,” Loki agreed. “She asked me about you, you know.”

“You didn’t say anything, did you?” Tony asked. 

“Oh, I told her everything I know,” Loki said easily. “She’s very good at interrogations.” 

“You’re useless. Utterly useless,” Tony said. “How are you my only friend? What have I become?” 

Loki just rolled his eyes. “I’m fabulous, and you’re lucky to have me,” he said. “Also, you don’t want me for an enemy.” 

Loki was gone by the time he looked up, and Tony snorted. Loki was, in fact, in the drama club. 

He was just closing his locker when he felt someone lean against it beside him. 

“Took your dramatic exit too soon, huh? What did you for—“ Tony started, before the words caught in his throat. 

Because that was not Loki. That was _Bucky_. 

“Uh…” he started, like the suave bad boy player that he was. 

Bucky was every bit as gorgeous up close as Tony had suspected. He was wearing his glasses and had his hair artfully styled so that it was curling onto his forehead on one side. He was wearing a blue military style jacket with pins grouped together on one side that said things like _save the oceans_ , _peace not war_ , and the requisite _fuck Trump_. 

“So,” Bucky said, drawing the word out, and his voice was amazing, oh Tony was screwed already. He was so in over his head. 

“Were you ever planning to talk to me?” Bucky continued. “Or have you just been planning to continue to stare at me from afar?” 

“Uh…” Tony said, which caused Bucky to smile that gorgeous smile again, and just made his stomach flutter even more. He finally managed to dig down deep into his unusually large reservoir of charm, and give a smile of his own. “Maybe I’m just shy.” 

“I wouldn’t think that ‘shy’ would be used to describe someone with your resume,” Bucky said. “I heard you got kicked out of a school at the beginning of the year for playing a recording over the loud speaker of some bully admitting to terrorizing a couple of your classmates.” 

“Did Romanoff have someone run a background check on me, or…?” Tony started. 

Bucky laughed. “Are you kidding? That was legendary, it made the news even out here,” he said. “They should have given you an award for that, not kicked you out.” 

“Apparently misuse of the school intercom is an expellable office, no exceptions for us warriors of justice,” Tony said, shrugging. “But hey, he got expelled too, so mission accomplished.” 

“You’d fit right in with the Avengers,” Bucky told him. 

“I thought Loki was kidding about that. You seriously call yourselves the Avengers?” 

“Well, I’m more of an honorary Avenger,” Bucky said. “I help out sometimes, but for the most part I try to stay out of trouble.” 

“Uh huh,” Tony said. “If you don’t like trouble, what are you doing talking to me?” 

“I did say for the most part,” Bucky said, smiling in a way that was nowhere near as innocent as it seemed. “I make an exception every now and then.” 

“Does that mean you’re going to go out with me?” 

“That depends,” Bucky said, spinning back to face him, though he kept heading backwards. “You finally gonna ask me?” 

Tony took off running after him with a grin.

**Author's Note:**

> PSA: Despite the portrayal here, smoking cigarettes is not cool! This Tony (all Tonys?) is self-destructive. If I actually had time to do this story justice, you could bet there’d be a chapter with Bucky lecturing Tony within an inch of his life.


End file.
